Day 402: Terror of the Zygons Part 1

This story sees the return of an old favourite to Doctor Who. I'm not referring to UNIT though (although they are certainly welcome and we will look at their role later), instead we are looking at the director Douglas Camfield. Absent from the series after heart problems that afflicted him during the filming of Inferno, he has now returned and brought with him an amazing eye for suspense. Take, for instance, the revela of the titular Zygons. He starts by having close-ups of their eyes, holding on them for longer than normal as they stare into ypur very being, making them seem intimidating as a result. Then, we move onto the hands, allowing the audience to form a pucture in their minds of what the creature looks like, showing them the other-worldly nature of the aliens and creating more suspense. This is helped by the dissolves between shots of the hands working, creating more of a sense of unease, due to this being an unfamiliar technique on the programme. Finally, when the decision is made to reveal the Zygon fully, it is done at the very end of the programme, present for only a handful of seconds thus leaving much of it as an imprint of fear in the audience's mind and not allowing them to pick flaws in the costume (which is actually incredibly good). All of this goes to show that Camfield knows how suspense works and is very good at using it. It's been a while Mr Camfield, but we're glad to have you back for a little while.